Women and gender issues

Following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s video message on the launch of the Zambia Chapter of the African Women Leaders Network, in Lusaka, Zambia, today:

The Commission on the Status of Women approved the first‑ever set of agreed conclusions focused on empowering women and girls in the context of climate action, as it concluded its sixty-sixth session late tonight.

A crisis, whether it is the COVID-19 pandemic or the devastating effects of climate change, can be an opportunity to empower women and advance gender equality by putting women in the centre of the recovery process, speakers told the Commission on the Status of Women during a panel discussion today.

On the heels of International Water Day, which was yesterday, humanitarian staff in the Horn of Africa say millions of people face severe water shortages and are going hungry due to the devastating drought in that region, which risks becoming one of the Horn’s worst climate-induced emergencies in the last 40 years.

The following statement by UN Secretary-General António Guterres was issued today:

Despite progress in bringing women to the table when shaping climate change responses, more must be done to ensure equality in local to global decision-making roles, delegates and civil society representatives said today, as the Commission on the Status of Women concluded the general discussion segment of its sixty-sixth session.

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message to the Group of Friends Commission on the Status of Women event, “Role & Responsibility of Men and Boys in Eliminating Gender-Based Violence”, in New York today:

The United Nations Palestinian Rights Committee will organize a virtual event on the margins of the sixty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women on “Impact of forced displacement on Palestinian women” on 23 March from 10 a.m. to noon, via WebEx.

The Commission on the Status of Women continued its work today, hearing presentations from 12 Member States about their national efforts to implement the agreed outcome on its 2017 session’s theme “Women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work”.

Strong female-based societies, indigenous women, women legislators and girls are agents of positive change and role models for sustainability, protecting the Earth and forging monumental achievements along the common global path towards sustainable development, delegates said today, calling for action to include their knowledge and experiences, as the Commission on the Status of Women continued the general discussion segment of its sixty-sixth session.